Tag: Selime Monastery

Sleeping felt great. Waking up, not so much. But we had to get an early start on the day as we day yet another all day tour before we had to run to catch another overnight bus, joy! Shazia had left for Istanbul last night, so we made friends with Cecilie and Finn.

We’ve actually been “stalking” them since Istanbul where we both stayed at the Mavi Guesthouse. They booked a tour with Ali’s help as well, and we (unbeknownst to either party at the time) booked essentially the same tour all the way to Samos. The only difference was Cecilcia and Finn had an extra day in Cappadocia before their tour.

We started with some more rocks just outside of town, but today’s tour eventually took us down to KaymaklÄ± to see the KaymaklÄ± Underground City.

We did a short (about 4 kilometers, or so) hike through Ihlara Valley and then stopped for a quick lunch over the river before finishing out our day. It wasn’t nearly as good at yesterdays buffet, but it filled the belly enough.

18.0 mm || 1/2000 || f/3.5 || ISO200 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

24.0 mm || 1/8000 || f/3.8 || ISO800 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

18.0 mm || 1/6400 || f/3.5 || ISO800 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

18.0 mm || 1/8000 || f/3.5 || ISO800 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

Funny picture of the day: What a bunch of tourist look like photographing a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

18.0 mm || 1/8000 || f/3.5 || ISO800 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

38.0 mm || 1/8000 || f/4.2 || ISO800 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

70.0 mm || 1/8000 || f/4.5 || ISO800 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

We finally headed over to Selime Monastery to finish up the day.

18.0 mm || 1/8000 || f/3.5 || ISO800 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

18.0 mm || 1/640 || f/3.5 || ISO200 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

18.0 mm || 1/15 || f/3.5 || ISO1600 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

48.0 mm || 1/1000 || f/4.5 || ISO200 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

18.0 mm || 1/2500 || f/3.5 || ISO200 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

18.0 mm || 1/6400 || f/7.1 || ISO200 || NIKON D70, Aksaray, Turkey

Getting back before our bus left had its moments of excitement. The bus was supposed to leave at 19:00 and our tour was supposed to get back by 18:30. However, we had a late start in the morning because they didn’t have enough seats and had to get a second bus for the tour. It was pushing 18:50 by time we got back to the hostel. Fortuneatly our bags were packed and ready to go. However, I needed to check my email to see if Ali had sent me any last minute information. Meanwhile, Charlie went to go take a shower after we decided that he was no longer allowed to ride next to me without taking one.

Ali actually ended up calling the Shoestring Cave and leaving a message. So I called him back. It was lucky I got a hold of him as there was a change of plans. It basically boils down to this: We were going to stay in Selcuk, which is about 25 minutes from Kusadasi, which is where we catch the ferry to Samos. The ferry leaves at 08:00 in the morning. Ali thought that he could get us a ride, but he couldn’t. So he’s going to have us stay at a place in Kusadasi instead so we can just walk to the ferry!

I wrote down all the contact information for our new hostel and was off running to the bus station with Charlie 45 seconds behind me. As it turned out, this bus didn’t leave on time and we had an extra several minutes to spare.

We took the short ten minute ride to Nevsehir, where it started raining buckets. As we arrived, the streets started looking like Venician canals. This was unfortunate for the sheer fact that none of us, save Cecilie, had any sort of rain gear. Finn used his backpack as a shield, I threw on my fleece zip-up, and Charlie just sucked it up.

Once we got on the bus, it was okay though. The AC was on, Charlie had take two showers, and we on our way to the cooler coast.

Andrew Ferguson

A 30-something expat electrical engineer from Seattle, Washington, currently working in the United Kingdom.

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All content by Andrew Ferguson unless otherwise noted, with some restrictions on its use. For anyone who cares, this weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer and/or school. It is solely my opinion, sorry. If you've reached this point, I'll assume you have time to kill, trying reading a random blog post.